Another young Tottenham Hotspur player is out the door and on a permanent basis. The club’s academy twitter account posted today that academy graduate Nile John has been sold to Portgual second division side CD Feirense. Further details about the transfer, including fee and whether there are any sell-on clauses or the like, have yet to be disclosed.
John, who has been at the club for 14 years since he was a schoolboy, had some buzz a couple of years ago as an emerging Tottenham youth prospect, making a few preseason matches and the occasional Premier League bench, and was sent out on loan to Charlton in 2022 for some experience. But despite that early promise he never made his first team debut with the club and now is being sent to a team in the Portuguese second division that only escaped relegation thanks to the playoff.
There are some Tottenham youth watchers that are upset by this move and are wondering why John never got a chance to kick on at Spurs like some of the other players. I think with some of these moves we have to simply trust that the coaching staff know what they’re doing, and that for whatever reason John never made the step up to be considered for a bigger role or a move to a bigger team. Not every academy player takes that leap, and it’s okay. The fact that he’s being sold to another professional football club is in itself a win for the academy and its talent development.
And that’s not to say that he can’t have a very good professional career or work his way up the system to top-division football somewhere. He could! I can’t really tell you anything more than I already have about CD Feirense, but a transfer to the Portuguese 2nd division is hardly a death sentence.
And if you want something heartwarming, John posted one of the nicest farewell messages to a football club and its fans I’ve ever seen. I’ll leave you with that.